November 29th, 2005

A survey conducted by The Pew Internet and American Life Project discovered that 17% of Americans have sold something online.  That is about one in six American adults that have sold online.  At any given time there are 25 million people or 2% are selling something online.

Ebay and online classified ads have become a way of life for many people.  It has brought the yard sale to a new level when people can bring their used items for the world to buy.  Everything from used children's clothes, to used books and DVD movies.  If you can’t use it why not sell it online? 

Ebay is one of the more known auction sites, but there is also Yahoo Auctions, Overstock Auctions and Ubid.   There is also traditional classified papers online as well, such as The Recycler, The Penny Saver.  There are a lot of ways to sell your used stuff online.

You can post an ad on Yahoo's classified ad section.  The bigger online classified ad sites are Craigslist, BargainTraderOnline.com, and ForRent.com.  Craiglist is the most popular of these, with over 8 million visitors in the month of September alone.  There are many other classified ad sites.  Look for the sites with free listing offers.  However if they cost money you should consider the more popular sites like Ebay as you will likely have better results.

Ebay still reigns as the online selling "King" with 459 million listings.   In just the 3^rd quarter eBay collected $1.1 billion from the sales on their site.  Ebay takes about 10 percent of the total sales.  The site generated 11 billion dollars in sales for their sellers in this quarter.

Checkout the beta version of base.google.com.  Google has started to dabble in the online classified ad business; they will let you post your item for free at this time.